Poultry cage door and latch



w. R. voRAN ETAL POULTRYDAGE DOORiAND LATCH Filed-Dec. 22, 1967 March10, 1970 INVENTOR' a Wm M W a WW W 2 4 FIG. 5

United States Patent Oflice 3,499,674 Patented Mar. 10, 1970 3,499,674POULTRY CAGE DOOR AND LATCH Willis R. Voran, Zeeland, Mich., and HarveyZ.

Burkholder, Ephrata, Pa., assignors, by mesne assignments, to US.Industries, Inc., New York, N.Y., a corporation of Delaware Filed Dec.22, 1967, Ser. No. 692,924 Int. Cl. Ec 19/06; A01k 31/00; E05d 11/10 US.Cl. 292-87 14 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE An improved door andlatch for poultry cages, in which the latch comprises a strip ofresiliently bendable material forming a leaf spring. This membernormally engages a structure on the door in a hooking manner, topositively prevent the door from being swung open. Upon resilientflexure of the spring member, the door is released and may be swungopen, but when the leaf spring latch is released while the door is in anopen position, an angularly offset tip of the leaf spring comes intocontact with the door, such that the spring force of the flexed latchmember acts to hold the door in its open position. From this positionthe door may be closed by simply pulling it against the resilientlyflexed latch member, which initially causes further flexing of the latchand finally results in a return of the door and latch to a lockingengagement, from which the door cannot be reopened until the latch isonce again flexed.

BACKGROUND The raising of poultry by confining small numbers withinrelatively small-area cage structures is becoming increasingly popularin recent times, since it appears that many economic advantages inherentin this type of operation. In fact, confinement cages are used both inthe raising of chickens and other poultry to their adult sizes and inthe housing of laying fowls for egg-production purposes. Consequently,many structural innovations and improvements in cage constructions havetaken place in recent years, since increasingly great attention is beingpaid to such constructions and to certain problems and limitations whichpreviously did not assume the importance that they now do.

'One particular area of trouble and difliculty in poultry cageconstructions is in the form of door which is used to afford access intothe interior of the cage, and in the locking or latching means by whichthe door is held closed. The basic problems are to provide a door whichwill reliably remain closed in service so that the birds cannot escapefrom the cages and so that predatory creatures cannot enter the cagesfrom outside them; at the same time, such doors must be easy to open forthose whose duty is to care for the birds within, particularly since oneor both of the hands of such persons may often be required for otherpurposes, as to hold equipment or the like. Further, it is veiy annoyingfor such persons to have to hold the door open all the while they arereaching inside the cages. However, many of the latching means employedheretofore were of a predominantly old and wellknown character, and as aconsequence, the basic problem has remained unresolved.

SUMMARY The present invention provides a new form of poultry cage doorand latch arrangement, whose operation very effectively resolves thedeficiencies associated with past types of equipment. A structurallysimple latch means is provided which is secured to the cage in a veryeffective but uncomplicated way requiring no tools, little effort, and

a minimum of parts, and which engages the door in either of two ways,one of which prevents the door from being opened and the other of whichholds the door open once it has intensionally been moved to an openposition. This engagement of the latch member with the door occurs as aresult of the unique shape of the latch member, which defines twointegral door-engaging portions. The restraining of the door in its openposition is accomplished through the self-biasing characteristics of theresilient latch member itself, and this restraining force may readily beovercome by a relatively slight amount of deliberate manual effortexerted upon the door to close it, during closure of which the latchmember is returned to an interlocking engagement with the door, suchthat when the door is closed it cannot be reopened until the latch ismanually actuated.

DRAWINGS FIG. 1 is a fragmentary perspective view showing a portion of atypical poultry cage having the improved door and latch of the inventioninstalled thereupon;

FIG. 2 is an enlarged perspective view of the latch member alone;

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the preferred mounting means for thelatch member;

FIG. 4 is an enlarged, fragmentary elevation in central section showingthe latch in its locking position; and

FIG. 5 is an enlarged, fragmentary elevation in central section showingthe latch in its door-restraining position.

PREFERRED EMBODIMENT In FIG. 1, three mutually perpendicular cage wallportions 10, 12, and 14 are illustrated as exemplifying the typicalfront, top, and side portions, respectively, of a conventional poultrycage formed of interconnected wire rods providing a walled enclosure ofopenwork, whose general nature is well known in the art. The frontportion 10 of such cage defines an access opening 16 forming a doorwayinto the interior of the cage. As illustrated, the boundaries of thisdoorway comprise a pair of spaced vertical cage-forming rods 18 and 20and a pair of spaced horizontal rods 22 and 24, the latter of whichdefines the upper front edge or corner of the cage.

Mounted in the doorway 16 is a door 26, preferably formed ofinterconnected rods of the same type which form the cage iself. The door26 is mounted in a pivotally swingable manner to the cage by suspendingthe upper corner extremities of the door to the front corner rod 24 ofthe cage, preferably by a pair of wire or other such ring elements 28.These rings hold the door in place across the doorway while permittingthe door to be pivoted about the front corner rod 24 of the cage fromthe generally vertical position illustrated, in which the door is closedand blocks the doorway, to a generally horizontal position, in which thedoor approaches parallelism with the top portion 12 of the cage andoccupies an open position with respect to the doorway. As illustrated,the door 26 is preferably longer than the vertical extent of the doorway16, and is mounted within the doorway such that the lower extremity ofthe door extends beneath the lower horizontal cage-forming rod 22, sothat the door cannot be swung outwardly away from the cage and must, inorder to be opened, be swung inwardly and upwardly, toward the top ofthe cage. Further, the upper central portion of the door 26 extendsvertically upward beyond the points near its corners at which the dooris attached to the cage, to form a latch-engaging cross-bar portion 30which is located somewhat above the level of the top cage portion 12.

The latching means 32 of the invention includes basically a latch member34 which is mounted to the top portion 12 of the cage, preferably by aclip member 36.

Latch member 34 (FIGS. 1 and 2) comprises a resilient spring-like stripof stainles steel or like metal which may be relatively thin and whichfunctionally operates in the manner of a leaf spring. At its forwardend, the latch member has a locking portion 34a comprising a segment ofthe latch strip which is oifset from the primary planar major portionsthereof and which extends generally perpendicular thereto but preferablyat a slightly acute angle with respect to the primary plane of thismember, as illustrated (FIG. 2). The forward tip of the latch memberdefines a restraining portion 3412, which extends forwardly once againfrom the locking portion 34a thereof, at a slightly obtuse angle to thelatter. The rearward extremities 340 of latch member 34 preferably areoffset downwardly at least slightly from the nominal plane of thismember (for example, at a small acute angle of approximately ten degreesthereto) to provide an angular bend in the latch member which is atleast partially straightened by placing the clip 36 seen in FIG. 1 intoits mounted position. This operates to place a predetermined initialstress upon the latch which causes it to resiliently urge its lockingportion 34a downwardly at all times against the top of thelatch-engagement structure 30 at the top of the door 26. Also, therearward-most extremity 34d of the latch member is bent downwardly toextend substantially normal to the portion 340 just noted, to form ahooking portion used in mounting the latch member, in a manner describedbelow.

The mounting of the latch member 34 to the top portion 12 of the cage ispreferably accomplished by a clip 36 having the configuration seen inFIG. 3. In essence, this is a rectangularly corrugated strap of metal orthe likehaving a pair of spaced, coplanar side portions 36a and 36b.Each such side portion has a generally perpendicularvertically-extending side lip 38, and the coplanar portions 36a and 36bare separated by a vertically offset center segment 360. In the mountingof the latch member 34, the central portion 36c of clip 36 fits over thelatch just ahead of its offset rearward portion 340 (FIGS. 1 and 4),with the aforementioned downwardly-offset rearward extremity 34d of thelatch hooking over the first rib 12a of the top portion 12 of the cage,located behind and parallel to the rod 24 which forms the upper forwardcorner of the cage. The coplanar side portions 36a and 36b of the clipeach fit beneath one of a pair of spaced ribs 12b and 12c of the topportion of the cage which lie perpendicular to ribs 12a and 24, justnoted. This arrangement creates an initial resilient bending of latch 34which partially straightens its offset portion 3 10, thereby firmlyholding both latch and clip in the mounted position illustrated.

The operation of the present door and latch for cages is readilyunderstood by reference to FIGS. 4 and 5. In the locked position of thedoor (FIGS. 1 and 4) the locking portion 34a of the latch is hookeddirectly over the latch-engaging cross bar 30 of the door 26, and thelatch member 34 is under at least a small amount of flexure between thedoor and the rod 12a of the cage over which the rearward-most extremity34d of the latch member is hooked. Consequently, the door 26 cannot beopened, since to do so its lower extremity must move inwardly within thecage enclosure, pivoting upon the mounting rings 28 and moving thecross-bar 30 outwardly with respect to the cage. This is positivelyprevented by the presence of the locking portion 34a of the latch.

To open the door, one must lift upwardly on the restraining portion ortip 34b of the latch member, flexing the latch upwardly by bending itfurther about the clip 36 until the locking portion 34a is raised clearof the cross-bar 36. When this has occurred the door may be swunginwardly to afford axis into the cage, whereupon releasing the latch 34will, due to the self-biasing or resilient nature of the latch, bringthe restraining portion 34b thereof downwardly into contact against thelatchengaging structure or cross-bar 30 (FIG. where the resilient biasexerted by the latch member will hold the door in a substantially openposition, the extent of which is determined by the mass and balance ofthe door and the stifiness of the latch member. Thus, the operator maythen freely reach into and out of the cage any number of times withouthaving the door swing shut. When the door is desired to be closed onceagain, however, it is merely grasped and pulled outwardly, whereupon thelatch-engaging cross-bar 30 rides upwardly upon the underside ofrestraining portion 34b, until it moves around the bend separatingportion 34b from 34a, whereupon the door will have been closed andautomatically locked once again.

It is entirely conceivable that upon examining the foregoing disclosure,those skilled in the art may devise embodiments of the concept involvedwhich differ somewhat from the embodiment shown and described herein, ormay make various changes in structural details to the presentembodiment. Consequently, all such changed embodiments or variations instructure as utilize the concepts of the invention and clearlyincorporate the spirit thereof are to be considered as within the scopeof the claims appended herebelow, unless these claims by their languagespecifically state otherwise.

We claim:

1. In a poultry cage construction of the type comprising a walledenclosure having a doorway for access thereinto, the improvementcomprising: a door mounted across said doorway for swinging movementbetween an open and a closed position with respect thereto; aresiliently biased latching means mounted on one of said cage enclosureor door and extending toward the other thereof; said other having alatch-engagement structure; said latching means defining a lockingportion for engaging said structure when said door is in a substantiallyclosed position to prevent movement of said door away from such closedposition; and removable means for removably mounting said latching meanson one of said enclosure or door and for biasing said latching means soas to maintain said locking portion engagement, said latching meansbeing movable against its resilient biasing thereby moving its saidlocking portion out of engagement with said engagement structure so asto allow said door to be moved toward an open position.

2. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 1, wherein said latchingmeans comprises a resiliently flexible latch member.

3. In a poultry cage construction of the type comprising a walledenclosure having a doorway for access thereinto, the improvementcomprising: a door mounted across said doorway for swinging movementbetween an open and a closed position with respect thereto; aresiliently biased latch means mounted on one of said cage enclosure ordoor and extending toward the other thereof; said other having alatch-engagement structure; said latch means defining a locking portionfor engaging said structure when said door is in a substantially closedposition to prevent movement of said door away from such closedposition; said latch means normally being biased to maintain saidlocking portion engagement but upon being moved against its resilientbiasing moving its said locking portion out of engagement with saidengagement structure, to thereby allow said door to be moved toward anopen position; said latch means further defining a restraining portionarranged to engage said latch-engagement structure when said door is inat least a partially open position, to thereby restrain said door frommovement away from that position.

4. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 3, wherein said latch meanscomprises a self-biasing resiliently flexible latch member.

5. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 4, wherein said latchmember is resiliently flexed when its said restraining portion engagessaid structure, such flexure producing a biasing force which acts torestrain said door.

6. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 5, wherein said latchmember is a leaf spring element.

7. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 6, wherein said leaf springelement is shaped to define both said locking portion and saidrestraining portion.

8. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 7, wherein said lockingportion comprises a hooking extremity which engages said engagementstructure by hooking over the same.

9. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 8, wherein said engagementstructure comprises a peripheral portion of said door and said latchmember is mounted on said cage enclosure.

10. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 9, wherein said latchmember leaf spring element comprises a single elongated strip ofresiliently benda'ble material.

11. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 10, wherein said strip isanchored on said cage at one end and said locking and restrainingportions are located near the other end thereof.

12. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 11, wherein saidrestraining portion comprises an end portion of said strip olfset fromthe major part thereof and extending at an angle thereto.

13. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 11, wherein said one endof said strip rests against said cage and said other end thereof restsagainst said structure, said strip being anchored to said cage by atleast light flexure of the strip between said ends thereof.

14. The improvement in poultry cages of claim 13, further including ananchoring clip means located at least in part' between the strip and thecage, for producing said flexure of said strip.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,152,823 10/ 1964 Batterson292-87 J. KARL BELL, Primary Examiner US. Cl. X.R. 49-394; 119-17

